The Dutchess County Department of Emergency Response has completed a project to develop a County-Wide Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP). All municipalities participated in this planning project, which was completed in mid-2016.

The creation of this plan will help the area to better prepare for, respond to and recover from hazard events and disasters, and allow the County and municipalities to maintain their eligibility for federal mitigation grant funding from the New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (NYS DHSES) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This is an opportunity for the County and municipalities to create a detailed plan that will address a variety of potential hazards that could affect our residents, businesses and other institutions.

The goal of the HMP is to identify projects that can reduce damages from future natural hazards. The plan includes a risk assessment and a hazard-mitigation strategy. This plan addresses the County and municipality’s risk to flooding, severe storms, severe winter storms, extreme temperatures, wildfires and other natural hazards. Mitigation projects and initiatives have been identified to address these risks to both public and private property.

What is Hazard Mitigation?

The term "hazard mitigation" describes actions that can help reduce or eliminate long-term risks caused by hazards, or disasters, such as floods, severe storms, severe winter storms and wildfires. As the costs of disasters continue to rise, governments and citizens must find ways to reduce hazard risks to communities. Efforts made to reduce hazard risks should be compatible with other community goals; safer communities are more attractive to employers as well as residents. As communities plan for new development and improvements to existing infrastructure, mitigation can and should be an important component of the planning effort.

While mitigation activities can and should be taken before a disaster occurs, hazard mitigation is essential. Often after disasters, repairs and reconstruction are completed in such a way as to simply restore damaged property to pre-disaster conditions. The implementation of such hazard mitigation actions leads to building stronger, safer and smarter communities that are better able to reduce future injuries and damage.

Hazard Mitigation Breaks the Cycle

When recurrent disasters take place such as riverine flooding, Nor’Easters and ice storms, repeated damage and reconstruction can occur. This recurrent reconstruction becomes more expensive as the years go by. Hazard mitigation breaks this expensive cycle of recurrent damage and increasing reconstruction costs by taking a long-term view of rebuilding and recovering from disasters.

What Are the Benefits?

Effective hazard mitigation planning can provide the following benefits:

Increases cooperation and communication within the community through the planning process

Increases potential for state and federal funding for recovery and reconstruction projects

What Types of Mitigation Techniques Can Be Employed?

Hazard mitigation actions are commonly broken into four different categories:

Local Plans and Regulations (LPR) – These actions include government authorities, policies or codes that influence the way land and buildings are being developed and built.

Structure and Infrastructure Project (SIP) - These actions involve modifying existing structures and infrastructure to protect them from a hazard or remove them from a hazard area. This could apply to public or private structures as well as critical facilities and infrastructure. This type of action also involves projects to construct manmade structures to reduce the impact of hazards.

Natural Systems Protection (NRP) – These are actions that minimize damage and losses, and also preserve or restore the functions of natural systems.

Education and Awareness Programs (EAP) – These are actions to inform and educate citizens, elected officials, and property owners about hazards and potential ways to mitigate them.

Common mitigation actions that are taken include:

Enforcement of building codes, floodplain management codes and environmental regulations

Public safety measures such as upgrades of roadways, culverts and dams

Acquisition or relocation of structures, such as purchasing buildings located in a floodplain

Acquisition of hazard prone lands in their undeveloped state to ensure they remain so

Retrofitting structures and design of new construction such as elevating a home or building

Section 1 Introduction: This section reviews why Hazard Mitigation is necessary and what it provides to communites, residents, and businesses.

Section 2 Plan Adoption: This section contains information regarding adoption of the plan by Dutchess County and each participating jurisdiction.

Section 3 Planning Process: This section includes a description of the planning process used to prepare the Hazard Mitigation Plan including how it was prepared, who was involved in the process, and how the public was involved.

Section 4 County Profile: This section describes the general information of the County and critical facilities located within Dutchess County.

Section 5 Risk Assessment

5.1 Methodology and Tools: This section describes the methodology and tools used to support the risk assessment process.5.2 Hazard of Concern: This section considers a full range of hazards that could impact the area, and then identified and ranked those hazards that presented the gretest concern.5.3 Hazard Ranking: This section ranks the hazards by describing their probability of occurrence and their impact on population, property, and the economy.